Sleeping Son, in Graphite

This is the only finished artwork I have of one of my children that was done completely from real life. It is considered preferable to paint or draw from a real subject, as opposed to using a photograph. But how does one get a child to sit still, even for five minutes? This son in particular was an extremely busy four-year-old, the age he was when I did this drawing. So I captured him asleep. And as one of his teachers reminded me recently, he still has a hard time sitting still.

It’s so nice to wake up in the morning and get two new commenters! I realized I have visited both of your blogs before (palette48 just yesterday). I added you both to my blogroll.

palette48, a lot of drawing people is just practice, practice, practice. Get a good book on studying the proportions of the face if you find your drawings look off. But it’s mostly just looking very carefully.